How do you know it didn't work? Distill your products!

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I'm not fat just horizontally disproportionate.

Poptart,

The easiest, sure-fire method of dehydrating either 3-phenyl-1-propanol or 3-phenyl-3-propanol is to dehydrate it with some tosic acid in refluxing toluene.  A Dean-Stark trap should be placed between the still pot and the reflux condensor to monitor the progress of the reaction and keep the equilibrium shifted to the right.  The progress of the reaction can be monitored by keeping an eye on the amount of water collecting in the trap.  This is a very clean reaction and produces very high yields of alkene when applied to 3,4 methylenedioxyphenyl-1-butanol.

Sorry Osmium, SWIM tried distillation of products. Nothing at 160, nothing at 180 and nothing came out at 250 degrees (swim stopped at 260). Water is generated, but no alkene.

Thanks Ritter. What is the mechanism E2 or E1?

???The problem with this dehydration is the alchol attacking the carbon -C-OH2+ (swim believes this happens only with primary alcohols). if the alcohol solution would be diluted enough then this would be minimized??? input!